Tackling thru-hull repairs on TAKARA

Upgrading our sailboat’s navigation instruments called for eliminating one thru-hull fitting and reducing the diameter of another by 1/8". Takara, a 1974 Irwin 30 Competition, has a one-piece molded fiberglass and polyester hull with alternating layers of hand-laid mat and 24 oz. woven roving. Her original instrument set included a pair of 2 1/8"-diameter transducer thru-hulls in the bow. Upgrading to modern instrumentation standards required installing an NMEA 2000 network instrument that was 2" diameter.

Jeff Mueller

The project, while simple in scope, posed a few complications: • The two original thru-hulls were quite close together• These thru-hulls were close to the centerline of the bow• From the inside, the thru-hulls were near some laminated stiffening for the bow as well as some tabbing to the inside liner We reached out to Gougeon Brothers, Inc. and were connected with Technical Advisor Don Gutzmer. We sent some pictures over and he assessed our situation. This was truly the best thing we could have done. Don’s technical expertise was evident throughout our discussions. He recommended we start by reinforcing the inside area with two layers of biaxial fiberglass cloth before making the repair from the outside. On the outside, to eliminate the obsolete thru-hull, we needed to taper the…

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Sailing World (Digital) - 1 Issue, Fall 2021

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